The Unfinished Castle
by Lady Phoenyx
Summary: Before it was Hogwarts, it was a pile of brick and stone. Follow the Founders and the first students through their own adventures, romantic entanglements, mistakes, and victories.
1. Chapter 1

**The Founders**

Helga was calmly watering the plants in her room, guiding the clay pot from plant to plant with delicate flicks of her wand, when she heard a familiar knock. "Come in, Godric," she said softly.

"Hello," came his sullen greeting.

"Hello. Would you like something to drink?"

Godric sighed and sank his lanky body into one of the overstuffed chairs by the fire. "We're getting nowhere, Helga. He won't listen to a word from either Rowena or I."

"Have you listened to a word that he has said?" she asked, tucking her wand into her sleeve.

He paused. Other than the repeated use of the word "pureblood", he couldn't recall anything specific that Salazar had said.

"I take your silence as an admission. Perhaps Salazar would be more inclined to listen to your wise words if he thought that his own words were not falling on deaf ears."

"Merlin's beard! I've been such a fool."

Helga squeezed his shoulder as she walked around him to sit in her own chair. "Don't swear, Godric. And yes, you've both been fools. If the two of you behaved any more like children, I'd send you back to class."

"Perhaps he would listen to you?"

"Don't be silly, my dear," she said, absently removing the tie from her long braid and working her fingers through it. "You know very well that he will not hear me. If you will but open your ears and hear what your friend is saying, he may return the favor."

"It's just his insistence on only teaching the purebloods, as if magic outside the blood of the magical families is some kind of slight to his pride."

Helga sighed, tossing her wavy auburn hair behind her. "Godric, you really have not heard a word that he has said. I have listened to the both of you fighting, and I can tell you that you have only caught one very small aspect of Salazar's argument."

"Helga, what are we to do? We have worked too hard for it all to come undone now. The castle is not even halfway to completion, we cannot settle on a name for our unfinished school, Rowena travels constantly in search of students to teach, Salazar and I can't stop fighting long enough to set a stone in the walls, and you…" he trailed off, averting his gaze from his perceptive friend.

"Go on, Godric."

Godric leaned forward in his chair and reached for her hand. She did not offer her hand, so he rested his on her knee. "You are perhaps the only one of us who has not lost sight of why we are doing this. Rowena wants her prodigies, Salazar wants his purebloods, I want my adventurers, and you, my dear? What do you want?"

Helga laid her hand over his. "I want to teach anyone who wants to learn."

They just sat that way, hand in hand before the fire, until it had died down to embers. When Godric reluctantly removed his hand from her knee to retrieve his wand and float another log to the fire, he heard Helga whisper. "Perhaps that is the solution."

"What did you say," he asked absently, setting the log on the coals and reigniting the fire with a flick of his wand.

"I said that perhaps I have the solution. You can each choose the students you want to teach, those who are best suited to each of you and your strengths and their strengths. I will teach the rest. I will take the half-bloods and the muggle-borns and the botanists and the healers. I will take any student not suited to the three of you."

"You will take seven for every ten who come to learn," Godric muttered, sheathing his wand in his robes.

"Oh, nonsense, Godric. Rowena and Salazar might be a little more selective, but I think between the two of us, we can evenly split the rest. Unless you really think it is so difficult to find bravery and courage and dedication." She reached out and gestured for him to return his hand to hers. "It certainly cannot be difficult to find the brash and foolhardy. Honestly, any Muggle-born willing to brave a castle full of apprentice wizards taught by Salazar Slytherin has got to have all the bravery you could ever want."

Godric smiled as he took her hand. "Helga, I am in awe."

"Don't be silly," she said for the second time that night. "If you and Salazar had ever managed to have a reasonable conversation, you might have come to the same conclusion."

"Will Rowena agree, do you think?"

"Rowena is clever. She will see the logic in this idea, if she has not had the idea since long before it came to me. You'll speak to Salazar, then?"

Godric moved to kneel beside her chair and gaze up at her. "In the morning?"

Helga smiled and ran a hand through his soft brown hair. "You only want to stay in my room because it is the only one of our rooms that is finished."

"You've found me out," he said. "If Salazar's room was this warm, I'd be telling him to choose a side of the bed."

"You can have the left," she said.

Godric moved up to sit on the arm of the chair. He ran the backs of his fingers tenderly across her cheek. "I thought perhaps we could share the middle."

"Godric, my dear, that is the second good idea you've had tonight."

"What was the first?"

"Coming to talk to me in the first place."

Godric laughed and they both stood and drifted toward the bed in the corner. "Perhaps we don't need to finish my rooms at all. We can just continue to share."

Helga leaned into him and stood up on her toes. "Don't be silly," she whispered in his ear.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Student Out of Bed

Noreen slipped unnoticed out of the temporary girls dormitory. After overhearing Master Slytherin muttering about the troubles of hidden chambers, she just knew she had to find it. To find a place in the castle that no other student knew existed would be her legacy. She had been at the school for a year now, and at sixteen had not yet discovered an aspect of magic that she loved more than others. With no clear path to focus her studies, Noreen often found herself exploring rather than reading or practicing.

She kept her wand out, just in case some wandering beast had crept into the unfinished castle for shelter. She dared not light her way, just in case one of the Masters was keeping watch. Thankfully, the stars above the open spaces in the ceiling were brighter than usual, and she could see well enough in the darkness to find her way.

Noreen had keen hearing, which was the only thing that saved her from being caught. Master Slytherin emerged from a side room and his eyes darted along the corridor. Noreen had heard the door open in barely enough time to immerse herself in the shadows and hold her breath, only praying that the intimidating Master couldn't hear her heartbeat.

When he was gone from the corridor, Noreen still waited several minutes in her hiding place, trying to decide if this adventure was worth the risk. Master Gryffindor would say that it was, and Noreen was rather fond of the brave man. She decided to finish her journey.

She hugged the stone wall as she made her way toward the door from which Slytherin had come. Taking a last look both ways down the corridor, she opened the door just a crack and squeezed herself inside, closing it with the greatest care behind her.

Noreen found herself in a washroom, a large round fountain with many spigots and sinks in the center of the room. A very strange place to hide a secret chamber. Perhaps Master Slytherin had simply been washing his hands. She felt disappointment settle over her, until, just as she was about to leave the room, she heard a strange noise.

At the back of the washroom, hidden from plain view by a haphazard pile of building stones that were made to look as though they had been forgotten during some bit of construction, a rooster sat upon a filthy nest. At the sight of Noreen, the rooster stood and clucked at her. Noreen saw that the rooster had been sitting on an egg, but a stranger egg than any she had ever seen, and certainly not a chicken egg. Noreen took note of the egg's unusual coloring and backed away from the alerted rooster, who was looking more and more anxious the longer she stared at it.

By some stroke of luck, Noreen left the washroom and made it back to the dormitory without being noticed. She slipped into her bed between the beds of the four other female students and pretended to sleep, though sleep eluded her and her thoughts were focused entirely on the rooster and the strange egg.

The Next Day…

Mistress Ravenclaw kept a great many books in her classroom. Behind her desk and lining most of the walls were sturdy wooden shelves filled with volume after volume of magical history, theory, spell work, potions, magical creatures, and just about any matter arcane that a curious student could wish to explore. She was particular about her books, and the students were not allowed to remove them from the classroom.

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were less particular, and were general happy to let the students take books from their classrooms as long as they were brought back in a timely fashion. Slytherin only kept a few books in his classroom, and the students weren't allowed to touch those at all.

Though she would rather have had the freedom to take a book with her, Noreen decided that her best chance to find out more about the egg was probably a book from Ravenclaw's collection.

Between two classes, and at a time when she knew that Mistress Ravenclaw was unlikely to be in her classroom to observe her, Noreen went inside and started perusing the shelves. She started in the magical creatures section, but the first few books and scrolls she tried were completely unhelpful.

She glanced at the books behind Ravenclaw's desk. While it had never been explicitly stated, the students generally understood that the shelves at the back of the room were not shelves that they were free to browse. Ravenclaw sometimes used those books in her lessons, but most of the students recognized that she was editing the material for them. Still, it had never been made a rule.

Noreen glanced at the door to be sure she was still alone, then boldly made for the shelves behind the desk.

She found a book almost immediately that caught her eye; _Creatures of Dark Origin_. She opened to a page where a strange looking egg was being sat upon by a hideous toad. Though the egg looked much the same, it had not been a toad, ugly or otherwise, that she had seen in the washroom. The egg was not of a cockatrice then.

The very next page, however, showed the very same egg under the feathery bottom of a rooster. "Basilisk," she murmured.

"What are you doing here?"

Noreen slammed the book shut and her eyes darted to the doorway, where stood Mistress Ravenclaw, looking not at all pleased to see a student pawing through her books.

Noreen had planned for the possibility of getting caught. Because she hadn't technically done anything wrong, she was confident that she could talk her way out of trouble.

"Mistress Ravenclaw," she began, respectfully inclining her head to the elder witch. "I came here to settle a disagreement. You see, a friend and I were having a discussion about the differences between… a cockatrice and a basilisk." There was no point in telling a whole lie if she could use a bit of the truth. "I thought that my best chance to find the answer would be in one of your books." Noreen gestured as if to include the entire library in that statement, hoping it would distract from the fact that she had taken a book from an area she knew she shouldn't have.

Ravenclaw raised an eyebrow, assessing the story she had just been told. The child was not telling her everything, but hadn't told an outright lie either. And, she had to admit that she had never officially restricted the shelves behind her desk, so she couldn't punish Noreen for that.

"In the future," Ravenclaw said, calmly approaching Noreen and taking the book from her hands. "These shelves are not to be accessed without my express permission. Not everything in these books is appropriate to all ages and skill levels."

Noreen had the wherewithal to look embarrassed. "I'm so sorry, Mistress! I only meant to settle an argument, I didn't mean to-"

"It's alright!" Ravenclaw cut her off. "As far as I can tell, you haven't seen anything you oughtn't, and your query was harmless enough. You could have simply asked, and I would have told you the differences, but I am impressed by your desire to learn on your own." She returned the book to its place on the shelf and turned back to Noreen, giving her a half-smile. "Did you find your answers?"

Noreen nodded. "I did, thank you."

"Very well."

Noreen understood that she had been dismissed. She bowed her head again and turned to leave the classroom. She was almost at the door when Ravenclaw cleared her throat.

"Oh, and Noreen?"

"Yes, Mistress?"

"I'll have two feet of parchment from you detailing the differences and similarities between a basilisk and a cockatrice. Please have it on my desk by Friday."

Noreen looked back at Ravenclaw. "Will I have access to the book again? I hadn't quite finished reading when you came in, you see, and-"

"You may come back tomorrow between classes and use the book for an hour. On your way, dear."

Noreen left hurriedly, before Mistress Ravenclaw could possibly assign her more work.


End file.
